Sampha - Process - 2017

Absolutely OBSESSEd with his voice and tone. Sampha has such a beautiful, unique, raspy, emotional, bright and soulful voice. He first caught my ear on Drake’s Too Much. Then I heard him again on Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” which was first introduced to me through a colleague’s “Back to Black” playlist, I was hooked.

The same week I heard Sampha’s voice on that playlist, Netflix launched a tv version of my favorite music podcast “Song Exploder”. They interviewed Alicia Keys on her song which featured Sampha and it all felt sort of serendipitous.

Songs like Kora Sings and Reverse Faults were a strong departure from the songs I am used to hearing Sampha featured in. There’s a certain level of doubt I carry when I listen to a full album by an artist that only I’m used to hear as features. (I.e. it took me a long time to fall in long with Jhene Aiko’s music because she was such a strong feature voice. I wasn’t immediately taken away by her own music because I wasn’t convinced her voice could carry a whole song; let alone a whole album.) I think they have this garage meets blues vibe that’s so unique to him.

Blood on Me had such an intriguing piano measure in the chorus. The whole song was fast paced and invoked anxiety and fear and then the chorus chimes in with the piano notes swinging back and forth. Then those notes came back in the bridge but he was singing the notes staccato. Man, it was so catchy.

My two favorite, inevitably, were the soft tone, emotional “No One Knows Me” and “What Shouldn’t I Be?”. Just pure vocals and piano. Really enjoyed those a lot.

Loved this so much. I want to dive into the music he’s produced and/or written as collabs with other artists too.